Sunday, March 12, 2017

This week, Speaker Paul Ryan and House leadership introduced an Obamacare replacement bill. They said it was the culmination of months of discussion and input with members of the GOP caucus in the House. “We listened to our members,” they said, and this was the result.It turns out that isn’t the case at all. The House Freedom Caucus and conservative groups like Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, Freedomworks and Club For Growth—among others—came out opposing the plan. And the furor began. What’s being revealed as this plays out is the real challenge it will be to “drain the swamp.” And as the fault lines between conservatives and leadership in the House widen, the Trump agenda is truly at risk.

5 comments:

The issue remains Doctors, Pharma, Hospitals and Finance swindling Americans with their inefficiency and poor outcomes. All the money, "collapse" and skyrocketing premiums arise from market failures and perverse incentives for patients and medical industry.

Fixing problems with Obamacare shouldn't be this controversial or "difficult" if people were working to fix health care. Needs to become a routine part of congressional work for the next decade or two until they get the problems ironed out.

If Trump wants to pass his agenda, he will need Democratic votes to compensate for his conservative opponents. Trump should be working to form a new bi-partisan coalition centered around jobs, universal health care, and less foreign meddling, but there is no sign that he is doing that. To the contrary, Trump keeps moving right in a futile attempt to get along with his own party.

Short of some unforeseen breakthrough, it's looking like Trump may become the next Jimmy Carter -- unable to get anything done and destined to be a one term president. What will he run on in 2020 -- tax cuts for the rich?

The Republican party is just as ideologically bankrupt as the Democratic party. Republicans spent 8 years being the "party of no," with no constructive plan to fix things. It's going to bite them in the ass.

Trump doesn't have a political organization to pass his agenda, so he's relying on the GOP (one half of the "swamp") to staff his administration, write legislation, etc. Not surprisingly, they are much more interested in passing their own agenda, not Trump's. Trump's role is to put on a show: tweet bizarre shit, hate immigrants, blather about a wall, etc.